Mordechai Meisel

Tomb of Mordechai Maisel at the Old Jewish Cemetery in Prague

Mordechaj (Markus) ben Samuel Meisel , including Meisl , Maisel , Konír (* 1528 in Prague , † March 13, 1601 in Prague) was court banker, philanthropist and head of the Jewish community in Prague.

Life

Mordechai Meisel came from an extensive Jewish family that had lived in Prague for generations. In 1576 he became a member of the council of elders of the Jewish community and later its primate. In this function he worked as an important builder of the Judenstadt (today Josefstadt ) and contributed significantly to its economic upturn. Meisel was a banker and court Jew of Emperor Rudolf II and very wealthy. He had the privilege of lending money in exchange for notes and mortgages of real estate , as well as other commercial privileges . Meisel was married twice but had no children. After his death in 1601 he was buried in the first tumba of the Old Jewish Cemetery . His will contained dispositions in favor of his relatives amounting to more than half a million guilders, but was challenged and confiscated by the tax authorities . For almost 100 years the inheritance was litigated between relatives and the Jewish community.

meaning

The cultural and historical importance of Mordechai Meisel lies primarily in his patronage . His participation in the construction of the Jewish Town Hall is controversial, but according to tradition it is attributed to him, although it cannot be proven from the documents. Surely he donated a hospital , a mikveh and a poor house on the edge of the cemetery at his own expense . He donated part of his property to the Jewish community in order to be able to enlarge the cemetery. Later he had the streets of the Jewish town paved at his own expense. In 1592 he completed the construction of his own private synagogue, which was larger and more splendid than any other synagogue in the city, and furnished it richly with ritual devices. According to the Majesty's letter awarded to him in 1598, he was also allowed to carry a “David’s flag” there, as it existed in the Old New Synagogue . This synagogue was named Maisel Synagogue after its builder, and inside it there is a memorial plaque in Hebrew and German to commemorate him. He also used himself to buy out Jewish prisoners, to support the poor and to grant non-performing foreign communities interest-free loans, he supported the Talmud School and the Prague Burial Brotherhood .

Mordechai Meisel is also one of the characters in Leo Perutz's novel Nachts unter der Steinernen Brücke (1953) , in which it says about him: The Jews say of him that if the whole city has a black year, his is in milk cooked .

One of the descendants is the Austrian author and journalist Lucian O. Meysels .

literature

• Hans Jaeger:  Meisel, Mordechai. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 16, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-428-00197-4 , p. 683 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Alexander Kisch : Mardochai Meysel's testament communicated and illuminated from handwritten sources . In: Monthly for the history and science of Judaism. Volume 37, 1893, ZDB -ID 208351-6 , pp. 25-40, 82-91, 131-146.
• Alexander Kisch: The chisel banner in Prague . Vienna 1901
• Meir Lamed:  MEISEL (Meisl, Meysl, Miška, Akhbar, Maušel, Konír), MORDECAI (Marcus, Marx) BEN SAMUEL. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica . 2nd Edition. Volume 13, Detroit / New York a. a. 2007, ISBN 978-0-02-865941-1 , p. 789 (English).
• Josef Meisl: Mordechaj (Markus) ben Samuel Meisel . In: Jewish Lexicon . Volume IV / 1. Jewish publishing house, Berlin 1930.
• Arno Pařík et al .: Pražské židovské hřbitovy = Prague Jewish cemeteries = Prague Jewish cemeteries . Zidovské muzeum, Prague 2003, ISBN 80-85608-69-3 .
• JR Marcus: The Jew in the Medieval World. New York 1981 (first 1938), pp. 323-326.
• Heinrich Schnee: The court finance and the modern state. History and system of court factors at German royal courts in the age of absolutism, according to archival sources. Volume 5, Berlin 1966, pp. 219-222.
• H. Volavková: A Story of the Jewish Museum in Prague. Prague 1968, pp. 259-66.